Before your willpower gets tossed away in a pile of candy wrappers, know you can have a piece of candy and be healthy, too …

It’s all in how you do it. Halloween can be the start of a season-long fight against the allure of comfort foods, festive meals, and sweets. Or, it can be a practice run for a healthier approach to the big-food holidays that follow.

Here are quick ways to stay on the wellness path, even when little goblins bearing bite-size chocolate temptations haunt your best intentions.

Pre-Halloween

• Stock up on healthy snacks and fresh produce. Put these full-filling nibbles conveniently within reach. Make them the fastest, easiest option to ward off hunger. Mix sweet and savory for a multi-craving buster.
• Think outside the candy bag when you shop for treats.  Trick-or-treaters, and their parents, will appreciate the novelty of play-doh, plastic rings, or fun stickers in their goodie bags. You can buy these in bulk where party goods are sold.
• Plan a quick and healthy Halloween dinner. Regardless of which side of the door you are on, once twilight sets, you’ll be busy. It is hard to sit down to a full meal, but there are alternatives besides fast food.

Tip: Create your own Halloween trail mix with nuts, dried fruit, popcorn, mini-pretzels. Throw in a small handful of chocolate morsels  for the right ratio of one part festive to five parts healthy.

Tip:  I  like to have veggies and hummus ready to go with cheese chunks, crackers, and fruit. These can be prepared the night before and munched on while costumes are donned. EasyPeasy  They also can be pulled out of the fridge later in the night, you know, in case any little candy hunters claim “hunger.”

On Halloween

• Manage to fit in a workout. It is probably a busier day than usual.  Then if you sneak in treats of your own, you know  it is only one part of your otherwise healthy day.
• Focus on other aspects of Halloween. (Yes, there are some beyond the candy.) Take note of the crisp fall weather, the crazy costumes and how they change yet stay the same over the years (same concept, different super hero). Decorate your entrance way. There are many inexpensive ways to create Halloween spirit that can rival the mounds of candy.

Tip: Be the parent who volunteers to make a candy delivery. After a street of homes, kids arms get tired. Put that upper-body routine you’ve done all year to good use. Collect the goodie bags and run them back home to avoid straining their little arms and hands.

Photo Credit: ymcagwc.org

Post-Halloween

• Stick with your healthy routine. You may have completely lost your resolve on Halloween. Perhaps you continued to stuff Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in your pocket on the way out the next morning. But, you are still a success.
• All-or-nothing is defeatist thinking. Throw yourself full force into your fitness routine. Get back to the gym and sweat.  Prepare a  flavorful, healthy meal.

Final word on a healthy Halloween. Just because you indulged for a day or two doesn’t mean it’s the end of health and fitness for you..  My best tips to stay on track are to be consistent with your workouts, be intentional with what sweets you choose to enjoy, and ditch the negative self-talk!

Hope everyone has an amazing day and comment below with your holiday fitness tips.